Major Hasan Dined with 'Jihad Hobbyist'

Ever since he told a British reporter that he felt "no pity" for the victims of the Fort Hood massacre, Duane Reasoner Jr., an 18-year-old Muslim convert who frequently dined with accused shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan and attended the same mosque, has ducked the media. His parents ordered ABC News off their property over the weekend and on Monday, Reasoner again dodged ABC -- this time by using a pass to drive onto the Fort Hood Army base, home of the soldiers for whom he said he felt no pity.

A photo uploaded to Duane Reasoner's online "photobucket" account is a violent image of Osama bin Laden presiding over the White House on fire.

(ABC News)
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For the most part, Reasoner has stayed close to the one-story Copperas Cove, Texas house he shares with his parents, who have reportedly worked on the base and who, according to a friend of Reasoner's, are "not particularly supportive" of the faith adopted by their son.

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But while Reasoner may not be making himself available in person, his presence on the Web is unmistakable. During the past two years, Reasoner has shown a marked interest in jihadi Web content and videos of figures associated with al Qaeda, including Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Anwar al Awlaki, the radical Yemeni-American cleric and al-Qaeda recruiter who exchanged e-mails with Major Hasan and told the Washington Post he considered himself Hasan's confidant.

According to terrorism expert Jarret Brachman, Reasoner appears to be a classic example of a "jihad hobbyist," one of a group of young, online obsessives who radicalize themselves by ingesting hardcore jihadist Web content, from YouTube videos to discussion forums.

"They make hating America, hating the West, their hobby," said Brachman, author of "Global Jihadism" and former research director of the West Point-based Combating Terrorism Center.

Brachman said these "Ji-hobbyists," as he dubbed them, nearly always confine their jihadism to the Web and that a "Ji-hobbyist" who becomes operational -- who commits a violent act -- is an anomaly.

But when it does happen, said Brachman, "They are celebrated." When Kuwaiti Bader al-Harbi went to Iraq and blew himself up, it thrilled his fellow online jihadis. "The posters were all freaking out because he had been one of them."